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looked at in longer perspective, it's striking how much this resembles the premodern system of exclusion, rents, and personalist connections, which was--and this part's important--radically worse than the modern system of impersonal rules and general taxation

i think cities should enable development according to impersonal rules and then levy impersonal taxes on land to pay for impersonal social services free_speech.png

Where I live (rural county) the planning commission is run by real estate developers, who hand great deals off to buddies. Huge subdivisions are approved that are contrary to the approved zoning plan, and no real impact fee is assessed.

So the existing tax base now has to pay to build additional schools and fire stations required by the large influx of people. Schools are over crowded. Property tax aces are skyrocketing. And developers were making an obscene profit.

Roads feeding freeway were never widened to accommodate the hundreds of additional commuters, so once again taxpayers are ponying up to fund roads that the developer should have been forced to expand.

" it's such a tremendous drain on the general prosperity in return for ???" vibes literally vibes

one of the really useful takeaways from fukuyama's political order books is a clear conceptual understanding of what corruption *is* in its fundamental nature. and the answer... is patronage networks organized on personal connections! corruption is *inherent* in these discretionary systems!

Am I understanding this correctly? Does this basically make economic rent-seeking mandatory?

www.smbc-comics.com/comic/econom...

Imo there has never been a human society that is not in some ways corrupt. Networking, nepotism, gotta-know-somebody-to-know-somebody are all still some of the best ways to find quality employment.